A Quote by Jeff Mangum
Often, everywhere we look, we seem to find obstacles and facades and smokescreens, so it was really nice to find things in the world that actually spoke to me. And I felt like Eastern thought really spoke to me. Because it isn't trying to cover up the pain in life; it's trying to deal with it and overcome it in an intelligent way. I think the reason I love Eastern thought so much, and mysticism in general - but especially Buddhism - is because it seems to me an attempt to look life squarely in the face, as it is.
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Thirty was a big deal for me. It was the age where I reevaluated everything - how I approached life and how I thought about myself. When I look at my 20s, or when I look at any period in my life, I think about how much time I've wasted trying to find the right man.
The pop world is cool, but I never really thought of myself as part of it or wanting to be a part of it because I'm on a label that's not really like that. They're not trying to dress me up, they're not trying to do things like that. I feel like I'm sort of separate from that, actually.
When the media would call and want to interview me, I thought it was 'cause they really wanted to find out what I thought about things. I thought it was because they really wanted to find out who I am. That's not what they wanted. They already in their minds knew who I was and they didn't like it, and they wanted face-to-face opportunities to expose my defects and my problems and my racism and bigotry and all this.
I don't know what story y'all trying to get out of me. I don't know what image y'all trying to portray of me. But it don't matter what y'all think, what y'all say about me because when I go home at night, the same people that I look in the face - my family that I love, that's all that really matter to me.
I was trying to figure out where my intellect, if I really have one, where it fit. And so I was searching. I really didn't know who I was or what I really wanted to be, and in that search, like I think you do as an actor, you end up trying to define whatever that is, and I sort of said, "Oh well, searching spiritually in a way is interesting, and Eastern religion seems to be about a search."
What does interest me is how difficult my culture seems to find it to look the dark side of life directly in the eye. It seems to me that if we look back at mediaeval culture, for example, we see a society which faces the reality of death and pain and limitation, because it has to. Our society, which is progressive and technological and seems to have a slightly fanatical utopian edge to it, gets very uncomfortable when anybody highlights the dark side of humanity, or the world we have built, or what we are doing to the rest of life on Earth.
The best way to deal in a transparent world is just be transparent. Let your life be authentic and let people look in. Because if they want to find out, they're gonna find out. And so to me it's given me a greater sense of accountability as a CEO. It's given me a greater opportunity to lead.
There was a long time in my life where I made music that I thought my friends would like, or that I thought would get me a record deal, or what I thought I was supposed to make because that's what I was seeing in mainstream. I didn't know myself; I didn't find myself musically or, in real life.
I felt like I was a writer, and I just thought filmmaking was the best way for me to express that, because it allows me to embrace the visual world that I love. It's allows me to interact with people, to be more social than fiction or poetry, and it felt like the right way for me to tell the stories that felt pressing to me.
Needless to say, the fact that he actually spoke to me at all practically caused me to pass out. And then the fact that he was actually saying something that sounded like it might be a prelude to asking me out - well, I nearly threw up. I mean it. I felt really sick, but in a good way.
They told me I would find it difficult to find work because of the way that I look and they weren't wrong. [laughs] I thought, "Well, I'll prove you wrong" because I genuinely believed that the world was a more diverse place than they perhaps viewed it to be.
It's nice to finally be thought of as sexy. I'm very disconnected from the sensual side of me, I know it's in me, but it doesn't really reveal itself very often in my personal life, which I do find problematic.
I cut myself because you wouldn't let me cry. I cried because you wouldn't let me speak. I spoke because you wouldn't let me shine. I shone because I thought you loved me.
A lot of people seem to think that art or photography is about the way things look, or the surface of things. That's not what it's about for me. It's really about relationships and feelings...it's really hard for me to do commercial work because people kind of want me to do a Nan Goldin. They don't understand that it's not about a style or a look or a setup. It's about emotional obsession and empathy.
I don't find the same things funny that many other people seem to find funny. I don't really respond to sex jokes and things like that, and some of my friends look at me and go, "Come on, Nic, that was my best joke. Why aren't you laughing?" I go, "I really don't know why I'm not laughing. I'm sort of out of sync with it." So I'd have to find something that was really about weird human behavior for me to laugh.
I'm not trying to prove anything. People look at me, and they take things away from me because of a movie. They don't really see the skills and the kind of player I am. That's why I get downgraded so much, because of something off the field.
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